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Do I put off a human vibe to you?

January 27, 2014

“We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal — the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight. But we make a grave mistake to embrace the Extrovert Ideal so unthinkingly. Some of our greatest ideas, art and inventions — from the theory of evolution to van Gogh’s sunflowers to the personal computer — came from quiet and cerebral people who knew how to tune in to their inner worlds and the treasures to be found there.”

Perhaps the person most responsible for the “extrovert ideal” is Harry Truman lookalike and menacing extrovert Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Originally published in 1936, the book remarkably still sells in the six figures annually and still offers peppy advice about focusing on “the other fellow.”

Carnegie admired the theories of behavioral psychologist Henry C. Link, who called introverts “selfish persons” and offered as proof his memorable contention that “Jesus Christ . . . was an extrovert.”